One thought on “Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal”

There are no words. Just awesome. Grieving because I finished this book, looking to find everything else by Michel Tremblay. Couldn't put it down. I remember reading the Chroniques when i was a pre-teen at the public library and finding them funny. Now, It's the discovery of my grandmother, my mother, the way they lived, the damn grey steak and the tea gravy, the refusal to talk about my epilepsy, still to this day, I laughed, I cried, so well written, so poetic, so real and yet, like a fairy ta [...]

This is one of my all-time favorite books, right up there with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I am just back from Montreal, where I made a pilgrimage to the Rue Fabre! I enjoyed dinner at the restaurant Chez Victoire, named for the grandmother and recommended to me by the author himself, who found my request for guidance on the Facebook fan page: Fans de Michel Tremblay. The characters from the Chroniques are woven into many other stories by Monsieur Tremblay; we fortunate readers never have to stray [...]

This is actually a chronicle about the decay of a fictitious family who lives on the Plateau Mont-Royal, Montreal's famous (now ex-)working class neighborhood. The action takes place from 1942 to 1963 and spreads over 6 volumes. You can see children growing up, going in sane, people standing still, nothing really developing. Volume 1 ("La grosse femme d'à côté est enceinte" - the fat woman next door is pregnant) still ends on a fairly hopeful tone; in volume 6 ("Un objet de beauté), no hope [...]